


Happy Pride

by Palebluedot



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, I got like ten cavities writing this, I mean in MY ideal vaguely post-cw world they hit up a Pride parade together so..., M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pride, fluff fluff fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-07-18 12:20:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7315021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Palebluedot/pseuds/Palebluedot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He supposes Bucky's right, then – love's never cared much about what the rest of the world looks like. <i>But damn,</i> Steve thinks, glancing around at all the other pairs of joined hands, <i>it sure is nice when the rest of you doesn't have to worry, either.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Happy Pride

Nat's jokes about old photographs aside, Steve knows better than just about anyone that the 1940s weren't _actually_ all in black and white. Still, drinking in the sea of flags and banners waving in the road ahead, impossibly vivid, he'd almost believe that color never existed until this very moment.

With that in mind, he understands when he looks over at Bucky and finds him gawking, mouth slack and eyebrows arched high. He bumps their shoulders together. “Something wrong?”

“Yeah.” Bucky nods, slow and solemn. “I can't _believe_ we slept through Gay Lib.” His eyes sparkle, flash in the June sunlight, and Steve busts out laughing. “ _All_ of it!” he cries, spreading his arms wide and failing to smother a smile.

Steve shakes his head. “Neither can I. I'd have loved to help out, fight the good fight and all.” Just a block ahead, the crowd whoops and cheers. It's almost time. “I think I like this better, though.”

Bucky smiles. “Me, too. _This_ sure is...wow,” he says, and there's that look again, wide-eyed and dizzy. Steve thinks it's the good kind of overwhelmed, God knows that's what he's feeling, but he can't be sure.

“It's not too late to change your mind, you know. I mean, it's...it's a big change, from our day.”

Bucky rolls his eyes, and there's no room to misinterpret _that_ look. “Quit babyin' me, doll, I'll be fine. I _am_ fine. We talked about this, remember? It's just a parade.”

“Yeah, but – ”

“And _besides_ ,” Bucky presses on, “it's not such a big change. I mean, from our old place, to the war, to, y'know... _oversleeping,_ and now to back in New York, feels like there's only one thing that hasn't changed a goddamn bit.” Steve starts to ask, but before he can get a word out, Bucky reaches for his hand and gives it a squeeze, and that keeps him quiet. Sweeps the words right out of his mouth, even after all this time. He supposes Bucky's right, then – love's never cared much about what the rest of the world looks like. _But damn_ , Steve thinks, glancing around at all the other pairs of joined hands, _it sure is nice when the rest of you doesn't have to worry, either._

Steve smiles, all dopey and everything. That's the same, too. “Right. You've always been a hopeless sweet-talker.”

“And you've always loved it.” Bucky pulls him in for a kiss then, so Steve can't tell him he's right, but when he cradles Bucky's face in both his hands and feels him smile against his lips, he figures he got the message across.

Behind them, a woman clears her throat. “Alright, alright, break it up you two – let's try not to ruin that makeup before the show, okay?” Steve turns and finds a parade volunteer with short white hair and a clipboard staring them down.

“Sorry, ma'am,” Bucky calls, grinning. “Couldn't help myself.” She shakes her head and walks to the next float, but looks more amused than annoyed. Steve's glad of that, but realizes with a laugh that they made complete messes of what used to be the little flags painted in neat, crisp lines across their cheeks. He's got bits of Bucky's rainbow dotted all over his hand, and Bucky's got Steve's purple, pink and blue smeared across the tip of his nose. Steve figures no one'll object to a little extra color, though, so he brushes his fingers over Bucky's temple, trailing scraps of rainbows in his wake. Bucky smiles.

“Who'd 'a thought, huh?” he asks, voice soft and eyes distant, and Steve knows exactly how he feels.

Steve's about to answer him, maybe kiss him again, but then the Dykes on Bikes rev their engines up to a roar, and they're off. No going back. The float rolls down 5th Street, rainbow flags flapping on all sides, the arches of red, white, and blue balloons Bucky'd nearly cried laughing at stretching above their heads, and the biggest speakers Steve's ever seen in his life blasting “The Star-Spangled Banner” so loud he can barely hear it when Bucky shouts “I love you.”

He can't help but kiss him then, and the crowd kinda loses it. The background whoops and claps crescendo to a shriek and a roar, and Steve's always felt a bit unsteady in the spotlight, but _goddamn_ , isn't that a beautiful sound? Steve pulls back and waves to the crowd with one hand, and holds tight to Bucky with the other, and just _looks_ at the tapestry of faces – the kids ready to change the world, the families that he never thought could exist, and the few but precious people who remember the same times he and Bucky do, but are still, impossibly, blessedly, standing right here alongside them.

Bucky bends down and sticks his hand into the bucket at their feet, and tosses strings of shiny, patriotically-colored beads towards the waiting mass of people, beaming like a man reborn. Steve watches them fly through the air and glint in the sun, and the two of them glide through a city blanketed in rainbows, without a raincloud in sight.

**Author's Note:**

> About their face paint - I've always headcanoned Steve as bi and Bucky as gay, but that's just me. Feel free to mentally edit the colors of their flags to suit your own purposes.


End file.
